taken from the treasury of david-volume 6.400f, a commentary by charles haddon spurgeon on the psalms.
'this little psalter within the psalter consists of fifteen brief songs. why they are grouped together and what is meant by their generic name it would be hard to tell. the conjectures are very many, but they are mere suppositions. out of them all the conjecture of dr. jebb best commends itself to my own mind, though it would be quite consistent with this suggestion to believe that the series of songs arranged by david became the pilgrim psalms of after ages, and were chanted by the Lord's people as they went up to the temple. they are 'songs of the goings up'; so some read the word. those who delight to spiritualize everything find here ascents of the soul, or language fitted to describe the rising of the heart from the deepest grief to the highest delight. i have thought it well to indicate the methods by which learned men have tried to explain the term 'songs of degrees', but the reader must select his own interpretation. spurgeon
in (I chronicles 13.7).. it is related, that david brought up the ark from kirjath-jearim to the house of obed-edom. the word used in the.. verse, for 'bringing up' the ark, is of the same etymology with, and cognate to that which is translated 'degrees'. and upon this occasion the great event was celebrated by the accompaniment of sacred music.
'and david and all israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets
again, (in 15.14)..the same term is employed for bringing up the ark to jerusalem: and the choral services of the levites are mentioned in immediate connection. and in (II chronicles 5.5)..we are told the solomon assembled the people at the dedication of the temple, to bring up the ark from sion to the temple of the Lord. john jebb
i abide in the simple and plain sense as much as i may and judge that these psalms are called the psalms of degrees because the levites of priests were wont to sing them upon the stairs or some high place; even as with us he that beginneth the psalms or preacheth, standeth in a place above the rest, that he may be the better seen and heard. for it seemeth not that these psalms were sung of the multitude which were in the temple, or of the rest of the choir, but of certain which were appointed to sing them, or like as some other of the psalms have their name and title from the singer. but how should a man know all their rites and ceremonies, especially after so long a time, whereby they are now clean worn out of the memory or all men? seeing therefore among such a multitude of psalms, when the law was yet in his full force and power, some were wont to be sung with one manner of ceremony and some with another, according to the time and place, as the use and custom then was, let this suffice us to think that this title pertaineth to no point of doctrine, but only to the ceremony of the singers, what manner of ceremony soever it was. martin luther
there were 15 steps by which the priests ascended into the temple, on each of which they sang one of these 15 psalms. david kimchi
no trace in history, or authentic tradition, can be found of these steps, which owe their construction solely to the accommodating fancy of the rabbins, who, as usual, imagined facts, in order to support their preconceived theories. john jebb
it is an additional objection to this rabbinical conceit, that david, whose name several of these psalms bear-and others of which have evident reference to his time and circumstances-lived in the time of the tabernacle which had no steps. james anderson's not to calvin in loc.
in the version of theodotian, executed in the early part of the second century, with the express view of correcting the errors of the septuagint, as well as in the translations by aquila and by symmachus, these psalms are rightly described as songs for the journeys up and are thus at once referred to the stated pilgrimages to the temple. the expressions,
'thou shalt GO UP to appear before the Lord they God thrice in the year. exodus 34.24,
'if this people GO UP to do sacrifice I kings 12.27-
a form of expression constantly employed as often as these sacred journeys are mentioned-is precisely that which the psalms themselves exhibit:
"i was glad when it was said unto me, GO UP unto the house of the Lord;
and while we may well adopt this view, for the additional reason that it is in harmony with the whole spirit and sentiment which they breathe throughout, we shall find these psalms to form at the same time one of the most admirable and instructive manuals of devotion with which the love of our heavenly Father, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, has been pleased to bless us.
robert nisbet, in 'the songs of the temple pilgims', 1863
...from the customs of the orientals still prevalent, i think it highly probable that such an explanation (that devout pilgims on their way to jerusalem to keep the great feasts of the Lord sang them) of the title may be substantially correct. nothing is more common than to hear individuals and parties of natives, travelling together through the open country and along mountain paths, especially during the night, break out into singing some of their favourite songs.
once, descending from the top of sunnin, above beirut, with a large company of natives, they spontaneously began to sing in concert. the moon was shining brightly in the clear sky and they kept up their chanting for a long time. i shall not soon forget the impression made by that moonlight concert, as we wound our way down the eastern side of lebanon to the buka'a, on the way to ba'albek. through the still midnight air of that lofty region the rough edge of their stentorian
(very loud and powerful in sound)
voices, softened into melody, rang out full and strong, waking the sleeping echoes far and wide down the rocky defiles of the mountain. something like this may have often rendered vocal this dreary ascent to jeruaslem. it is common in this country to travel in the night during the summer, and we know that the hebrew pilgims journeyed in large companies. on his ascent along this road from jericho to the holy city, Jesus was attended not only by the twelve apostles, by by others, both men and women; and it would be strange indeed if sometimes they did not seek relief from this oppressive solitude by singing the beautiful songs of zion. william m. thomson, in 'the land and the book', 1881
when we consider the place in the psalter which these 'songs of degrees, or of the goings up' occupy, we see good reason to accept the statement (of the syriac version, and of s. chrysostom, theodoret, euthymius, and other fathers, and also of summachus, aquila and of hammond, ewald and many moderns), that these psalms describe the feelings of those israelites who went up with zerubbabel and jeshua and afterwards with ezra, and still later with nehemiah, from the land of their captivity and dispersion at babylon, susa and other regions of the east, to the home of their fathers, jerusalem. hence, in some of the foregoing psalms, we have seen a reference to the dedication of the second temple (ps. 118), and of the walls of jerusalem (ps. 102), and to the building up of the nation itself on the old foundation of the law of God, given to their fathers at sinai (ps. 119) christopher wordsworth
gesenius has the merit of having first discerned the true meaning of the questioned inscription, inasmuch as first in 1812, and frequently since that time, he has taught that the fifteen songs have their name from the steplike progressive rhythm of their thoughts, and that consequently the name, like the triolet (roundelay)
(a song in which a phrase, line or the like is continually repeated)
in western poetry, does not refer to the liturgical usage, but to the technical structure. the correctness of this view has been duly appraised more particularly by de wette, who adduces this rhythm of steps or degrees, too, among the more artificial rhythms. the songs are called songs of degrees or gradual psalms as being songs that move onward towards a climax, and that by means of (greek) plokA (epiplokA), ie. a taking up again
of the immediately preceding word by way of giving intensity to the expression; and they are placed together on account of this common characteristic, just like the michtammim, which bear that name from a similar characteristic. franz delitzsch
we may notice the following characteristics of nearly all these psalms:
sweetness and tenderness;
a sad pathetic tone;
brevity;
an absence generally of the ordinary parallelism;
and something of a quick, trochaic
(pertaining to a trochee, which is a foot (commonly refers to the movement of the foot in beating time)of two syllables(a vocal sound or set of sounds), a long followed by a short in quantitative meter, or a stressed followed by an unstressed in accentual meter.)
rhythm. the speaker's commentary
though it may be they are so called because of their excellency ; a song of degrees being an excellent song, as an excellent man is called a man of high degree I chron. 17.17;
these being excellent ones for the matter of them, their manner of composure, and the brevity of them. john gill
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